Post in evidenza

In a very welcome move, the Supreme Court of India is acting against the publication and dissemination of rape videos

lunedì 2 giugno 2014

Indian woman gang raped and strangled to death

Police in north India are trying to identify a young woman who was gang raped, strangled to death and then had acid poured on her face in an apparent attempt to hide her identity. The attack took place about 60 miles from the village where two girls were gang raped and hanged from a tree last week.

Officers said the body of the woman, believed to be 22 years old, was discovered on Saturday in a field in the village of Aithpura, close to the city of Bareilly.

According to the Press Trust of India news agency, the result of a post-mortem examination released on Monday showed the woman had been assaulted, made to drink acid and then strangled. Her face had later been mutilated with acid and petrol, apparently in an attempt to hide her identity.

News of the attack comes as India is still reeling from the rape and murder last week of two cousins, who were seized and assaulted after they went into the fields to relieve themselves. The girls, believed to be aged between 12-14, were then hanged from a mango tree on the edge of the village using their own scarves.

Relatives said when the girls went missing, police refused to investigate the case and abused them over their low-caste status. The family’s caste is at the very bottom of the Hindu social structure, whereas the three alleged attackers and the police officers on duty belong to the yadav caste, which is the “dominant” caste in the area.

Since the discovery of the girls’ bodies last Wednesday morning, a number of politicians have made their way to the simple shack occupied by the girls’ extended family. The most recent was Ram Vilas Paswan, a government minister who is also from a low caste.

He criticised the state government of Uttar Pradesh (UP) for failing to do more to protect the girls. “If you are not being able to provide right to life, then what kind of government this is,” he asked, according to reports in the Indian media.

The state government in UP is run by the the Samajwadi Party, which draws much of its support from the yadav caste. During India’s recent election campaign, the head of the party, Mulayam Singh Yadav, sparked controversy by saying rapists should not receive the death penalty because “boys will be boys”.

On Monday, protesters from the Bharatiya Janata Party, which runs India’s federal government, protested outside the headquarters of the UP state administration in Lucknow. Police used water cannon to disperse them.

Police said there was a suggestion that the woman discovered on Saturday near Bareilly may have come from the state of Uttarakhand and a team of detectives had been dispatched there to look into her background.